Using your passport / confirmation email as your ticket on a train from Barcelona to Lyon?
So currently traveling at the moment and last night i booked a train from Barcelona to Lyon. I used the tgv-europe.com and the last time I ordered a ticket from there it was easy, it just sent me a ticket via email.
This time however, it only had one option which was to send a ticket to a physical address. As I'm on the road, and I don't have a physical address, this is not possible.
However, as it also asked for my email and it also contained text under email text field that said "you will need this in order to collect or print your ticket", I thought well maybe they'll send me a real ticket but I should still be able to just show my email ticket.
When I received the email, it ended up saying that my ticket was being sent to me (I put down the address of the place in Lyon I'm going to) and that I can't use the email as a replcaement for a valid ticket.
What to do now? I've emailed them and not sure when they'll get back to me, I take this trip in about 12 days and not sure where I'll be in getting to Barcelona.
How strict are they with this not being able to use your email rule? If I had my passport with my identity, my credit card for which I made the booking and the email printed out with the correct seat numbers, would they be likely to let me on?
Best Answer
The answer to this is that you definitely need to either have the posted tickets, or get a refund and then buy new tickets that you can either print-at-home or collect at the train station. You will not be allowed to travel with the email confirmation + identification, unless the train conductor on that train breaks the rules for you, but this is unlikely.
It is not is possible to buy print-at-home or collect-at-station tickets for this journey from a French SNCF website (TGV-Europe.com is owned by SNCF along with a load of other sites, including all Rail Europe sites and voyages-sncf.com). You can purchase print-at-home or collect-at-station tickets for any domestic French journey but as this is a cross-border journey (i.e. it starts in Spain) it is only possible to buy posted tickets. I know this because my website loco2.com is currently integrated with the French booking system and we offer the same delivery options.
I think the Spanish rail company Renfe does sell print-at-home tickets for this journey, but you may have problems using a foreign credit card (see this post).
I hope that helps anyone reading this who is in a similar situation to the original poster.
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